Published 10:49 pm, Saturday, February 12, 2011

The USSF board of directors, during the group's three-day Annual General Meeting in Las Vegas, narrowly approved provisional elevated status for the NASL for one season, with several crucial caveats.

According to the Inside Minnesota Soccer web site, which cites sources close to the process, the OK comes with the mandate that the eight-team NASL and primary backer Traffic Sports USA will need to find new owners for the Atlanta, Carolina and league-owned Minnesota franchises.

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Also, it must ensure that San Antonio's club, planned for 2012, will be available for competition. That franchise, owned by developer Gordon Hartman, will be called San Antonio Scorpions FC.

The fate of the San Antonio operation is critical, as it is slated to fill the slot opened in 2012 when the Montreal Impact is scheduled to join Major League Soccer. Hartman, by text, declined to comment Saturday night.

“The federation's continued interest is in the sustainability and stability at the Division 2 level of professional soccer,” U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati said in a statement released Saturday night.

The Scorpions' future remains a question mark due to roadblocks to Hartman's plan to build a 5,400-seat stadium at his STAR Soccer Complex. The most notable hurdle is ballot language of a venue tax that helped fund the site specifically for amateur sports, along with a decision by Bexar County officials to not contribute public money to the project until 2012 at the earliest.

Hartman's plan is up against an initiative by Spurs Sports & Entertainment to field a third-division United Soccer League franchise, also by 2012.

According to the report by insidemnsoccer.com, the USSF board decided by a 6-5 vote — with Gulati and MLS commissioner Don Garber abstaining — to provisionally sanction the NASL for one year despite a negative recommendation by the federation's pro-league task force.